He logs ten-thousand miles a year on his Ultra Classic Electra Glide, a bike Harley-Davidson calls "the touring smorgasbord." When he's not in the saddle, you can find Bruce Dennert MEPP'02 designing engines for this flagship Wisconsin industry.

A professional engineer with thirty-plus years under his belt, he was fifty-seven when he finished his second master's degree through a UW online learning program. "I wasn't looking for a promotion," he recalls. "I wanted to prove that I could still learn and was looking for some enrichment to do my job better."

His experience was so positive that it led to several other university connections. Bruce began team-teaching a series of online courses for the UW Master of Engineering in Engine Systems (MEES) program, which brings him back to campus for one week each summer to meet with students. He spoke at a Made in Wisconsin event in January 2006, at the Harley-Davidson factory in Wauwatosa. And he shared his story with Alumni for Wisconsin, a new coalition to create a public dialogue about the importance of higher education in our state.

The bipartisan Alumni for Wisconsin, formerly known as the Badger Action Network, is designed to keep UW alumni up-to-date on legislative issues. More important, it reminds them how the university and graduates like Bruce Dennert are making a difference in their well-being and to the state of Wisconsin.

When Bruce posed for WAA's ad campaign: "Wisconsin. A state. A school. A stand", he didn't tell anyone about it, not even his wife. He received a flurry of calls after the ad was published on the back cover of the Spring 2006 issue of On Wisconsin magazine, including some from people he had never met — and a call from his wife. Public dialogue indeed.